rickjt62

3Cforme

There are round-trip F fares as low as $307 on AS in November. There are one-way F fares as low as $154. Maybe you're traveling around a high demand date (or time).

Often1

What is the specific date and how flexible are you?

Bear in mind that with tiny F cabins, all it takes is one family or business group of 4 and that leaves little else.

metallo

As has been discussed in other recent threads, AS's revenue management has been a bit goofy on these ex-VX planes. It's almost as though they're applying a 16F RM strategy to an 8F cabin. With so few seats available in First on these Airbus planes, you're less likely to see as many discount premium cabin fares (although certain routes/times do have more available). It seems that, lately, often only one seat out of eight is being sold as a discount First fare (or is available as advance 'U' space), and the other seven are ridiculously priced. Many of the remaining seats go unsold due to these high fares. In my personal experience, when I flew ORD-LAX recently on an A320, coach was priced at $99, while First was priced at over $1200, with seven seats left in F. No one bought them, and they were all given away as complimentary upgrades two hours before departure. It seems as though it may take AS a while to get the RM just right.

rickjt62

eponymous_coward

You're flying the weekend before American Thanksgiving (which is November 22 this year). This is one of the busiest, craziest weekends in flying in the United States, up with the Sunday-Monday AFTER American Thanksgiving and the weekends immediately preceding and following Christmas also being peak travel times. Very high demand because people are flying to celebrate the holidays with family (think bank holiday weekend in the UK and then multiply it) and the ticket prices tend to reflect that. You'll find the airports to be crowded and the lines to be long.

3Cforme

There are five United flights on that date, priced from $193-$235 in F.

sfozrhfco

Given that the flight time is only around an hour coupled with the fact that there is no 100% guarantee the AS flight will be on an airbus, the options are either to wait it out and see if the prices drop or take the much lower fare now on UA.

Eastbay1K

Whatever you do, on whatever airline, make sure you build in at least 4 hours of connection time. There's always a slight possibility that AS will send you to SJC or OAK on an inclement weather day, or that UA (and everyone else) will have 2+ hour delays, and several cancellations on an inclement weather day, most affected are the short hops.

Often1

This is the sort of thing that makes the marketers jump for joy. Even the remote chance that someone would pay $550 rather than $194 for what is roughly the exact same product, is a testament to their power.

Eastbay1K

It isn't quite that simple. If they sell a $194 F seat on LAS/SFO, it means they may not sell a $700 F fare LAS/SFO/HNL (or pick a connecting route) if the LAS/SFO is full.

sfozrhfco

It is just as likely that they don't sell any of the seats.

Often1

Has nothing to do with consumer behavior, even if it were the case which it is not (UA sells connections to Asia, Europe and Australia through SFO).

The fact is that OP is complaining about a $550 ticket on AS and asking whether he should wait for the price to drop at the same time that he could purchase the roughly equivalent product on UA for $194.

Kacee

On separate tix, connecting to long-haul, agree 4 hour connection at SFO is the bare minimum. Night before would be better.

Meanwhile, the UA fares will rise as inventory sells.

VX F is a nice product, but on a 1 hour flight, it's worth about $50 more than UA, max. I'd buy UA and be done with it.

formeraa

I must have missed those other threads, but I'm seeing some of the same thing on QX jets in Y. It's like they are being optimized as if they were 738's, resulting in higher coach pricing when no or very few seats have been sold).